A classic Avengers villain, a couple of licensed characters, and a real life Golden Age baddie.

158. Maelstrom (8 points)

Maelstrom is the son of Phaeder, an Inhuman scientist banished from their city of Attilan for attempting cloning to increase Inhuman population numbers. Phaeder then lives among the Deviants, and bred with a Deviant female named Morga who gave birth to Maelstrom. With his father's tutoring, Maelstrom became a brilliant geneticist. After his father is incapacitated in an experiment, Maelstrom swears revenge on the Inhuman race and becomes a would-be conqueror.

Maelstrom can absorb, channel, and otherwise manipulate vast amounts of kinetic energy; this includes kinetic attacks made against his person. He could hypothetically absorb a full strength punch from Thor and redirect the energy transferred into an energy blast or simply use the blow to strengthen his own power without any ill effects. He can also use this power to shrink or grow to unknown limits. His stored kinetic energy is often visible as a glowing plume of energy about his body.

He has a certain measure of superhuman strength, but rarely exerts himself physically; he has learned to use his control of kinetic energy to augment his physical power. If he had a perpetual source of kinetic energy, his strength would know no limits, he has in the past used the energy created from the Earth’s rotation to power him, or simply stopped the rotation itself. Obviously conventional attacks are useless against him. Maelstrom at one time used the Quantum Bands to augment his already considerable power.

Maelstrom is a genius in a multitude of areas of science, particularly genetics and biology, his level of comprehension and study is centuries ahead of current sapient knowledge.

157. Baron Karza (8 points)

Baron Karza was initially a normal human from the Microverse. He was a cunning master strategist with tremendous long-term vision and an escape plan for defeat, including physical resurrection. He was able to influence others by appealing to their base and negative aspects, but was quite prepared to rescind any alliance to further his own ends. He was egotistical, arrogant and ruthless, and craved power and knowledge, as well as the acquisition of new and alien technologies that could augment his own powers.

Karza used an uber-technology, like his centaur horse legs and red chest guns, to overthrow the monarchy of Homeworld and took control of a big part of the Microverse before he was defeated by the Micronauts.

I still have this toy.

156. Starscream/Hitler (9 points each)

Starscream is second in command of the evil Decepticons, a race of sentient shape-shifting machines known as Transformers from the planet Cybertron.

Due to his treachery and personality, he has become a fan favorite and has had many future characters within the franchise to bear his name, some of which share his desire to become leader of the Decepticons. Starscream has, at some points, had control over the Decepticons, but his actions usually lead him to being defeated, or overruled by the more powerful Megatron. Starscream makes no secret of his ambition to overthrow Megatron as Decepticon leader. He is more intelligent than the average Decepticon, ruthless, and cruel, but he is also unlikely to directly act on his ultimate ambition without assurance of conditions favorable to his ascension. He considers himself vastly superior to other Decepticons, and looks down on Megatron for being antiquated in his military strategy and tactics. Starscream believes that the Decepticons should rely more on guile and speed rather than brute destructive force to defeat the Autobots, though, even when given the chance to strike out on his own, he is equally as successful as Megatron. Megatron frequently overlooks the potential threat that Starscream represents. However, Starscream often exhausts Megatron's patience quickly; violent-yet-brief verbal and/or physical conflicts are not uncommon between the two.

Wizard Magazine has listed Starscream as the 46th greatest villain of all time, even more so than Megatron himself.

Hitler was the original arch foe, as every hero in the Golden Age did their part to kill the Fuhrer. Outside the realm of comics, Hitler was in fact extremely influential when it came to the American comic. Hell, it can be argued that it's because of Adolf that Captain America was created to begin with. The very first issue of Captain America showed the iconic image of Cap uppercutting Adolf with force as a crowd of Nazis fired wildly around the room, terrified of this new enemy. Oh, and this cover was drawn a year before Pearl Harbor. He later became a major threat, along side The Red Skull (see later on the list), to Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos and The Invaders. He showed up in Byrnes run of Fantastic Four as the Hate Monger as well.

So, yeah. Hitler was definitely integral as a villain to the success of the super hero in comic books. Give the genocidal, one-balled asshole douche his props.

Comment without an Outhouse Account using Facebook

We get it. You don't feel like signing up for an Outhouse account, even though it's FREE and EASY! That's okay. You can comment with your Facebook account below and we'll take care of adding it to the stream above. But you really should consider getting a full Outhouse account, which will allow you to quote posts, choose an avatar and sig, and comment on our forums too. If that sounds good to you, sign up for an Outhouse account by clicking here.

Note: while you are welcome to speak your mind freely on any topic, we do ask that you keep discussion civil between each other. Nasty personal attacks against other commenters is strongly discouraged. Thanks!

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media: